Writing Advice! Post Yours!

[barsoomcore]

Over the years I've collected lots of inspirational or otherwise quotes and bits of advice on writing, writing well and living a writer's life. I bet I'm not the only one.

So here's one fresh from the pen of Neil Gaiman:

The problem with the good advice is it's mostly much too simple. Joe Straczinski told me about the time that he, when young, got hold of Harlan Ellison's phone number and phoned him up. He explained that he was a young writer and nobody would publish him. According to Joe, Harlan said "They won't publish you because you're writing crap. Stop writing crap and they'll publish you." Which was very good advice, and Joe took it. But it's sort of simple.

Stop writing crap. Wish I'd known that years ago.

Or Robert Silverberg:

There are three essential rules to becoming a better writer:

1. Read a lot.
2. Write a lot.
3. Read a lot more, and write a lot more.

Come to think, that one's pretty simple, too, isn't it?

What do you got? Share it up.

 

[takyris]

To continue the relatively high-level discussion:

"Write what you want to read, and read what you want to write."

That's from, uh, me. If you want to write fantasy novels, read a lot of fantasy novels. If you enjoy reading goofy swashbuckling adventure stories, why is it so important to you to write dark brooding stuff?

"Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent."

S'from Carol Emshwiller. She told my class that if you practice writing bad stories, you get really good... at writing bad stories. I don't always agree with this, but it does raise a note of truth -- my karate teachers say the same thing. If you're going to practice a form/set/kata, practice it well. It doesn't have to be fast, but it should be clean, whether you're doing it hard or soft or whatever. Practicing in a kind of lackadaisical way with sloppy strikes will just teach you how to do sloppy strikes.

This may mean that aspiring novelists shouldn't write story hours, since writing a lot of story hours gets you pretty good at writing story hours at the expense of improving your novel-writing skills. The two media feel different to me, at least, and the tone and pacing styles of one don't necessarily work with the other.

 

[Desdichado]

Not that any of us are really good sources for advice -- I don't know if there are any published novelists on the boards.

But I've read a number of books on authorship in the past, and a few things come to mind, in random order:

• Just do it. The biggest stumbling block to most would-be writers is actually having enough follow-through to actually finish something.
• Writing is a skill more than a talent. Sure, really great stuff takes talent, but anybody can learn to be a good writer through work and practice.
• Contrary to taky's advice, I've often heard that it's good to be well-rounded in what you read. Don't just hang around in the genre you like. One thing I've definately noticed is that reading (and watching) mysteries, thrillers, non-fiction, horror, and heck, even a bit of romance, makes me a better fantasy writer because I can bring to bear things I pick up in those other genres.

 

[takyris]

JD -- to clarify, I wasn't saying "Don't read other stuff", or at least, I wasn't intending to do so. But your writing style is more likely to take on aspects of the fiction you're reading the most of. Make sure you keep reading that stuff.

 

[LightPhoenix]

It may be odd that I don't write much at all, and yet I'm posting.

Especially with regards to Story Hours... don't write for other people, write for yourself. If you write a SH expecting it to become the next big hit, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. And if your SH is the next big hit, us fans will be clamoring for more, and it's an easy way to burn out if you listen to them. If you write for yourself, then you'll never be disappointed and chances are likely you won't burn out, because you'll be enjoying it a lot more.

 

[Morte]

Somebody said, and I believe them, that the average writer has about a million words of crap in their system. For especially talented writers, it might be just four hundred thousand. You need to get that behind you if you want to be a writer of any "note". Decide whether that's for you.

If you just want to write Story Hours for fun and to share worldbuilding/DMing ideas...

- Stare at the screen until your eyes bleed. Eventually, prose may come.

- Don't post stuff you're not happy with.

- Speak the dialogue out loud, or if possible get someone to to speak it for you. Revise until it sounds (a) natural (b) right for the character and (c) engrossing.

- Use a word processor with spelling and grammar checkers, unless you're good at that stuff which you probably aren't.

Some links:

Turkey City Writers' Workshop Lexicon
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html

Grammar and Style Notes - by Jack Lynch, who teaches writing.
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/

Writers on the net - professional writing teachers, costs money.
http://www.writers.com/

The Standard Deviations of Writing by Roger MacBride Allen
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/mistakes_allen.htm

SFWA tips page - SF writer's association
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/writing.htm

 

[Plane Sailing]

I recently bought my wife a book to give her writing inspiration (I think it was called "the pocket muse"). Flicking through it one bit stuck out - basically don't spend too much time thinking about writing, actually *do* the writing. If you want to write, then write & write & write.

Someone talking about quality time with kids made the point strongly that you can't plan quality time with your kids. You can plan quantity time and out of spending that quantity time moments quality time will emerge. I have a strong feeling that the same is true with writing.

Having said that, Story Hours are pretty much written for fun, and read for fun too. What I like to read in a storyhour is

* a mix of dialogue and narrative - not too heavy on either.
* the sense that I'm looking in on a game rather than reading a novel (I don't mean that I visualise the people around the table, I mean D&D games work very differently to novels - not least because the DM & players may have different expectations of what they are getting up to, unlike a novel where all flows from the pen of the single author)

Cheers

 

[pensiv]

Elmore Leonard has some good tips-
http://elmoreleonard.com/index.lasso?template=excerpt&id=86"

 

[barsoomcore]

Elmore Leonard is my hero. And that is some GREAT advice.

Another principle I encountered that's always stuck with me is from a How To Play Guitar book (forget the title) in which the writer repeatedly admonishes his readers to go easy on the whammy bar (if you don't know, that's the little handle sticking up from the bottom end of the strings that the guitarist can yank on to make the sound go all waaoooaaaoooaaooo).

Over and over again he says, "Don't reef on the whammy bar. Take it easy."

Finally at one point in the book he says, "Look, I know you're reading me saying, 'Easy on the whammy bar,' and you're thinking to yourself, 'Yeah, but Jimmy Hendrix does it.'

"He was Jimmy Hendrix. Trust me, take it easy on the whammy bar."

Which is really the same as the Beau Brummel principle. GQ magazine used to have a column on men's wear written by some incredibly fussy fellow who seemed to think we were all still in the twenties. I loved it and read it religiously. At one point he did a "10 Fashion No-Nos," (hang on, I'm getting to the point) one of which was "Never wear a hankerchief in your pocket AND a carnation in your lapel. I know Beau Brummel got away with it, but he was Beau Brummel."

All of which ties neatly into James Michener's famous advice to young writers:

"If you can't beat Tolstoy, we don't need you."

I know it sounds harsh and unencouraging -- but, well, if it makes you want to give up, then I guess you ought to give up. For myself, I know that "beat Tolstoy" doesn't mean "write War and Peace, only better." It means, "Write what Tolstoy could never have written, what Leonard never thought of, what Silverberg didn't imagine. Write what's you. What only you can provide. Without a lot of hooptedoodle."

 

[Greatwyrm]

I've found I enjoy fiction which also follows some of the more basic rules of business writing.

1. As Mark Twain said, "don't use a ten cent word when a five cent word will do." Writing in any form shouldn't be an exercise in showing off your vocabulary. It's about getting your idea across in an easily understandable manner.

2. Another basic rule of business writing is get your message across in as few words as possible. Not to say you should skip over important details, but you need to know when enough is enough.

3. A little repetition helps make your ideas stick. A lot of repetition either bores people or makes them think you believe they're idiots.

4. Don't edit your own work. When your read your own stuff, your brain will put in things you know should be there, but you forgot to write. Others will be able to spot this better than you will.